The management strategies of public service employers in Europe

This article examines the reform of public services management in Europe drawing on material from Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. It considers the limitations of interpreting changing public service employment relations in terms of a convergence towards the new public management and outlines an alternative interpretation of these reforms.     

The road to cooperative supply‐chain environmental management: trust and uncertainty among pro‐active firms

The pressures on firms to improve their environmental performance have caused them to look outside their boundaries towards their supply chains. In such approaches, firms work with vendors to develop the environmental profile of supplied materials (for example) by reducing materials' toxicity or the amount of packaging used. While large firms can mandate that their suppliers comply with such initiatives, more cooperative approaches are generally likely to be more fruitful. This article presents the results from an exploratory, two phase study of the conditions under which firms engage in cooperative supply‐chain environmental management. First, the authors conducted interviews with 14 leading‐edge firms. In the second phase, the authors conducted a theoretical‐sample survey to examine a model of the antecedents of cooperative supply‐chain environmental management. The results suggest that inter‐firm trust, uncertainty and pro‐active environmental management most directly affect the extent to which firms engage in cooperative supply‐chain environmental management. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Corporate Environmental Paradigms in Shift: Learning During the Course of Action at UPM–Kymmene

Contrary to the popular conception in the corporate environmental management literature that corporations must learn new ecocentric paradigms before they can be expected to produce environmentally sound performance, the present results suggest that cognitive–level environmental learning in organizations does not inevitably precede behaviour change. Rather, at least partially, such learning is likely to occur in the course of action. The article also proposes that external pressure can set motion, but it alone does not lead to an environmental paradigm shift. In order to undergo such a shift, organizations will have to learn a meaning of their own to support new, more environmentally sound forms of activity.
The present study examines empirically how two companies have learnt to incorporate environmental considerations into their managerial paradigms. It adopts a perspective according to which learning is portrayed as a process in which changes are brought about in the collective beliefs that the organization members hold about the relationship of their business to the natural environment (i.e. environmental management paradigm). Applying the grounded theory approach, the article identifies phases of environmental learning starting from the recognition or rejection of weak signals in 'pockets' of the organization, continuing through the gaining of new knowledge and experience towards 'competition' between old and new assumptions about the business–environment relationship, and finally proceeding to potential frame–break.     

Environmental Policies for Sustainable Development: An Analysis of the Drivers of Proactive Environmental Strategies in the Service Sector

This article examines the drivers of environmental proactivity in the service sector. Hypotheses were tested using multiple hierarchical regression analysis with data from a sample of 41 managers in Spanish environmental consulting companies. Results show statistically significant relationships between (1) managers’ attitude towards sustainable development, (2) positive short‐term firm performance and (3) the strategic attitude of environmental consulting firms and the adoption of proactive environmental strategies by the studied companies. This article is pioneering in the analysis of drivers of corporate proactive environmental strategies in the consultancy sector. The findings have practical implications for policy‐makers, investors and other agents interested in a better management of the environment. Economic incentives such as subsidies to environmental training programmes for managers can induce changes in cognitive components of managers’ attitudes. Education policies could also affect managers’ attitudes towards the environment. Companies may also encourage attitude change by providing their managers with financial assistance to receive environmental training. External assistance to develop a strategic attitude could be an interesting policy to encourage voluntary environmental initiatives. Finally, fiscal deductions, tax breaks or subsidies to those companies interested in managing the environment can be effective incentives for those firms facing a weak short‐term financial situation. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

施工现场质量管理体系刍议

对施工现场质量管理体系的概念、内容以及建立健全质量管理体系基本方法进行了分析，并根据作者的工作经验列举了建立健全质量管理体系及运行中应注意的问题。     

施工现场质量管理体系刍议

对施工现场质量管理体系的概念、内容以及建立健全质量管理体系基本方法进行了分析,并根据作者的工作经验列举了建立健全质量管理体系及运行中应注意的问题.     

SESAME: an Integrated Economic and Social Accounting System

This article outlines a statistical information system that serves to monitor and analyze the interactions between economic development and social change. This so-called SESAME links the monetary data in the national accounts to non-monetary social and environmental data, and yields a consistent set of core indicators on the development of national welfare.     

Engaging Hong Kong businesses in environmental change: drivers and barriers

Hong Kong's businesses have been slow to embrace environmental management principles, particularly in the SME sector. This article analyses key barriers and incentives to engaging Hong Kong businesses with voluntary environmental initiatives and compares their relevance for companies of different sizes. As in other countries, SMEs show a much lower uptake of such activities than larger companies. Their approach towards environmental management is predominantly reactive, and legislation remains the key driver for engaging them with environmental change. Inadequate government policy and support, societal attitudes and corporate culture all contribute significantly to the comparatively poor development of corporate environmental management among Hong Kong companies. As long as most SMEs regard voluntary environmental activities as costly and unnecessary ‘extras’ that endanger their competitiveness and detract resources from their core business without offering any tangible benefits, fundamental improvements in their environmental performance will be difficult to achieve. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Disentangling the influence of internationalization on sustainability development: Evidence from the energy sector

This paper aims to deepen our understanding of the relationship between firms' internationalization and their sustainability development. We expected firms with a higher level of internationalization to exhibit better environmental management and performance. A sample of 287 publicly traded firms in the energy and energy‐related utilities sector was used to test these relationships. We focused on the energy sector, as energy production and supply have historically accounted for the lion's share of global greenhouse gas emissions. We found that firms' level of internationalization had a positive effect on their environmental management, whereas its effect on environmental performance was not found to be significant. We also tested whether these relationships change when firms' internationalization is oriented towards developing countries. Upon a closer look, the relationship was found to be significant between internationalization towards developing countries and better environmental management, thus contributing to the line of literature that does not support the pollution haven hypothesis.     

STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN THE IRISH CHEMICAL/PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY

Business strategy publications about decision-making have provided a large amount of information on decision-making relating to market share, competitive advantage, managing change and achieving quality. Nevertheless, little research has been carried out on strategic environmental management. Four in-depth case studies of environmental strategy formation and implementation in chemical/pharmaceutical companies in Ireland are presented here. A continuum describing the differing levels of strategic environmental management among the companies is developed. The dimensions for the continuum include attitude towards environmental management, compliance record, level of environmental training, environmental department structure and community relationship, among others. The findings suggest that environmentally proactive companies follow a decentralized or holistic approach to environmental management. Furthermore, these companies have developed an environmental philosophy which has been adopted throughout the organization. This philosophy is identified as environmental caring     

Environmental strategy and low waste operations: exploring complementarities

Organizations require guidance on the most effective functional areas in which to invest in order to improve and sustain environmental performance. As managerial practices progress from concerns with compliance towards practices seeking competitive advantage, more theory is needed regarding the manner in which corporate strategy and operational practices influence environmental performance. This research considers the potential for previously under‐researched complementarities between strategy and operations and the bridging role of environmentally specific practices such as the use of environmental experts as determinants of environmental performance. Using a sample of manufacturing firms, this study explores the relative contribution to environmental performance of strategic intentions, core operational practices such as data and quality management and environmentally specific practices that link strategy to operations. The most significant influence on environmental performance was found to be environmental expertise – which creates a bridge between strategy and operations – and information‐intensive practices such as quality and data management. Strategic intentions or core operational practices in isolation were not considered sufficient support to successfully maintain or improve environmental performance. This research provides a contribution to our understanding of interactions between those functions that have the greatest influence on environmental performance management in manufacturing firms. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Using life cycle approaches to enhance the value of corporate environmental disclosures

As the focus of environmental policy and management shifts from cleaner production at the process level towards greener products as a whole, stakeholders ask for transparency throughout the entire value chain. This article assesses the comprehensiveness and the value of currently reported quantitative environmental disclosures of 97 listed companies from the automotive, banking, pharmaceutical and electronic hardware sectors. Findings indicate that quantitative environmental disclosures have many limitations, including incompleteness and inconsistency regarding corporate activities and sites, and limited internal data coherence. For many sectors, corporate disclosures only cover a very small share of the total environmental burden of products. A stepwise procedure is proposed to verify and improve the quality and completeness of reporting using life cycle approaches. We present simple data quality tests, and we introduce the concept of the environmental influence matrix, which provides a solid basis for the identification and prioritization of key performance indicators and areas of action. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Corporate motivations for environmental sustainable development: exploring the role of consumers in stakeholder engagement

This paper examines the extent to which the end‐consumer appears to influence corporate behaviour towards reporting specific environmental management activities, through examination of environmental disclosures by the UK FTSE 100 companies. The paper also explores whether proximity to the end‐consumer is associated with particular motivations for environmental management – whether cost‐reducing or reputational benefits, hypothesizing that close‐to‐consumer companies (C2C) will have a greater focus on reputational benefits than their counterparts. The results established that C2C companies were significantly more active in particular environmental measures (climate change and management processes) than their counterparts. They were also more likely to undertake environmental activities for which there was no explicit cost‐reduction benefit, suggesting that reputation with consumers/society may be a particular business motivator for them. These findings are important to policy makers, government and investors in terms of identifying which companies are leading particular aspects of the corporate environmental agenda and understanding the driving forces for it. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Managerial research on the pharmaceutical supply chain – A critical review and some insights for future directions

This paper presents a systematic review of research on management in the pharmaceutical supply chain (PSC). Recent PSC literature, published in peer-reviewed academic journals, was collated for content analysis. Research efforts depict a traditional focus on efficiency-improvement, with an emerging interest in process-analysis and technology implementation in the PSC. PSC research is also highly context-specific and focuses on developed economies. Accompanied with a transition towards network-centric approaches, studies depict distinct focus on three levels of industrial interaction, which influence the final value delivered. Research focus is rapidly moving from value addition within the pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution environment to the interface with healthcare services, facilitated by the healthcare procurement and supply function. The review broadly outlines the scope for integrating research efforts from R&D to final healthcare delivery and for more studies in emerging economies.     

数据挖掘在企业人力资源绩效管理中的应用

企业人力资源绩效管理作为企业管理的重要内容,在其绩效过程中产生了大量的反映员工绩效情况的数据却无法得到很好的整理和利用,因此,企业需要一种能从数据库中自动提取隐藏在数据中有用信息并从中总结其内在规律的工具来解决这一问题。论文阐述了数据挖掘的基本理论和企业人力资源绩效管理的现状,通过决策树技术在绩效分析中的应用,找到影响员工绩效的真实原因,发现绩效规律,找到企业绩效管理的有效途径,从而改进绩效管理策略,提高员工的工作效率,支持管理决策,帮助企业实现其绩效的持续发展。进而提升企业效益。     

Product waste in the automotive industry: Technology and environmental management

In this article the changes in technology and industry structure forced by waste management in the automotive industry are explored. The analysis is based on (1) a characterisation of corporate response to environmental issues, and (2) the management of technology applied to the car manufacturing industry. It is argued that a more elaborate view of company reactions to governmental regulation of environmental issues has developed in recent years. Companies respond with pro-active strategies. Because of this active attitude environmental concerns influence other aspects of company policy, such as the management of technology. New strategies emerge which are not only a response to environmental problems, but might also influence the industrial structure for the future. The analysis is not only relevant for the automotive industry, but for other manufacturing industries as well. Government action puts waste management issues on the agenda of an increasing number of manufacturing firms that have to develop solutions for these in close cooperation with their suppliers and customers.     

Designing a Better Business School: Channelling Herbert Simon,Addressing the Critics,and Developing Actionable Knowledge for Professionalizing Managers

Herbert Simon's 1967 article ‘The business school: a problem in organizational design’ anticipated many of the challenges business schools face today. Critics charge business schools with failing to realize their primary purpose, that is, to produce professional managers. This article revisits what Simon advocated with regard to a core feature of this professionalism, the production of essential management knowledge, and the process of educating people in applying it. With Simon as a guide, this article outlines educational and research interventions to help business schools realize their founding purpose. In doing so, it addresses the distinctive knowledge products that business school research can contribute to the management profession. This article also highlights the key role that evidence‐based management and the related practices of design science play in providing a more complete solution to the design problem Simon identified.     

What We Know About Environmental Policy: An Inductive Typology of the Research

Environmental performance is a multidimensional concept that is difficult to measure since it concerns the pollution generated by companies, their energy consumption and their different environmental policies. Academic research has used objective and/or non‐objective indicators to measure this performance, dealing with both its managerial and measurement dimensions. This paper provides an inductive typology of the academic work concerning environmental policy through a computerized content analysis of 151 articles from 1992 to 2014 related to the management and measurement of environmental performance. The results highlight four major themes around which the academic research is organized: the relationship between environmental and financial performance, environmental performance under stakeholder engagement and institutional pressures, the strategic management of environmental performance, and increasing awareness of the sustainable development issue. Environmental performance research has evolved from a quantitative towards a more managerial dimension, highlighting the integration of performance within the management of a corporate business strategy. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Sustainable entrepreneurship and sustainability innovation: categories and interactions

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework to position sustainable entrepreneurship in relation to sustainability innovation. The framework builds on a typology of sustainable entrepreneurship, develops it by including social and institutional entrepreneurship, i.e. the application of the entrepreneurial approach towards meeting societal goals and towards changing market contexts, and relates it to sustainability innovation. The framework provides a reference for managers to introduce sustainability innovation and to pursue sustainable entrepreneurship. Methodologically, the paper develops an approach of qualitative measurement of sustainable entrepreneurship and how to assess the position of a company in a classification matrix. The degree of environmental or social responsibility orientation in the company is assessed on the basis of environmental and social goals and policies, the organization of environmental and social management in the company and the communication of environmental and social issues. The market impact of the company is measured on the basis of market share, sales growth and reactions of competitors. The paper finds conditions under which sustainable entrepreneurship and sustainability innovation emerge spontaneously. The research has implications for theory and practitioners in that it clarifies which firms are most likely under specific conditions to make moves towards sustainability innovation. The paper makes a contribution in showing that extant research needs to be expanded with regard to motivations for innovation and that earlier models of sustainable entrepreneurship need to be refined. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

浅谈如何运用环境管理工具实施环境管理体系审核

本文主要对如何运用环境管理工具实施环境管理体系审核进行了分析,指出了各项环境管理工具在环境管理体系审核中运用的方式方法及相关内容和重点,为环境管理体系审核员提供指导和参考。